Today in Central
Market we had to wait our turn at the deli meat market. Jordan stood by the
counter and talked to the server when it was her turn. An attractive young
woman was also being waited on at the same time. I sat in my motorized grocery
go-cart, but it was obvious from conversation that Jordan and I were together.
The other woman offered Jordan a taste of her New York-style pastrami, and they
struck up a conversation. In the checkout lane, the same young woman came up
behind me, so I said, “Hello, again!” She began to talk to Jordan, never spoke
to me nor acknowledged me.
That’s not the
first time I’ve been invisible recently, though I’m never sure if it’s because
I’m handicapped or because I’m perceived as elderly (hey! I’m young at heart!).
But I came home today and read a lengthy article, sent by a friend, on the
transition to elderhood, and the need to shed our identity and take on a new
one. I’m not sure about shedding my old identity—it’s who I am, but perhaps I need
to think more about my new status of “elderhood,” with its connotations of
wisdom with age.
The writer had
experienced a health crisis several years earlier and now, in retrospect,
recognizes that was his transition to elderhood, his forty days in the desert
as it were where he shed his old identity and re-entered society, ready for his
new role. It struck me that my health problems of the last eighteen months are
maybe my own personal transition. But into elderhood? I’m not sure about that.
I know that life
is different than it was two years ago—before my hip disabled me and ultimately
required extensive surgery, before my heart decided to beat to a different
drummer, before that lens in my right eye decided to go a-wandering. And that
invisibility I mention above is part of the change.
Elderhood sits
uneasily on my shoulders, though I recognize my social interactions are forever
changed. Some longtime friends are loyal and oh! So very good to me; others
have kind of dropped away. Part of it is me—I no longer leap at every
opportunity to go to a conference, a book event, evens sometimes a neighborhood
dinner. It’s too easy to stay in my cottage. Nor do I burn with the passion to write—my
approach these days is more leisurely, sometimes dominated by procrastination
which was never like me.
The article
recommends developing a dedicated circle of elders and mentors. I’m not sure
about that. I am reminded of my writing mentor. He and his wife moved into an
apartment complex where my daughter had once lived, and when I protested that
it might be noisy because there were a lot of young people, he said that was
precisely why he chose it. He did not want to be surrounded by old people. I
sympathize. The cottage is my way of avoiding assisted living yet getting the
assistance I need—like, Jordan, please come hang up my clothes because I can’t
reach. But I am also around young people—Jordan’s friends--and they welcome me
into their community. I guess they regard me as older, but they never make me
invisible.
I’ve gone on too
long, but this is a subject I’ll keep puzzling over in my mind. I’d welcome your
thoughts on elderhood even if you’re still young. I keep going back inmy mind
to “You’re only as old as you feel.” Just drop me an email at j.alter@tcu.edu.
